A -Cross the Street

Inspiration:

Millions of Californians live their lives uninsured, and the percent of uninsured individuals in Oakland, California, is higher than the statewide average. There is an apparent and urgent need for proactive resources to help those without insurance.

What It Does

A-Cross The Street is an app built to help those without insurance realize that healthcare is just across the street. Our purpose is to make medical care accessible to those without insurance. This user focused app marketed to Oakland residents without insurance is a one-stop app whose usage can be organized into two categories.

1. An outreach resource aimed at increasing access to public insurance. Let's check if you qualify for MediCal. If not, maybe Covered California is the right match?
2. Provide accessible information on which resources are available without insurance. Let's get you connected with some local clinics/hospitals that can offer you care for little to no cost.
   

How We Built It

We built the mobile app using React Native as a client-side server, in which we utilized javascript.

Challenges We Ran Into

We could not build a functional API that could integrate a map feature from Python that showed the locations of each clinic. Furthermore, we had trouble creating the clinics' database via python.

Accomplishments That We're Proud Of

More than half our team members are first-time Hackathon participants. Rather than being deterred by the struggles we encountered, we were able to quickly adapt. We also learned a lot of new skills and explored many avenues to implement our app. In the process, we were able to grasp many aspects of app design and engineering. From struggling to display our first screen, to finally finding out how to successfully link our various screens, we faced challenges every step of the way, so we couldn’t be more proud of the final product that we’ve created.

What We Learned

Prior to the Hackathon, only one person on the team had experience using Javascript. After starting, we all had to adapt to using it, and we created a full-fledged app. But what we've learned stretches far beyond technical skills. We learned perseverance, team coordination, how to set up a new environment (as opposed to adding to one which already exists), how to conduct effective research (as there is a lot of information to take into account in order to build an accurate and useful app in the field of health insurance ), and how to self-teach!

What's next for A-Cross the Street

First, we will integrate a map feature that will show the location of the clinic. Then, we are planning to use the Google Maps API to show the shortest distance from the user to the clinic if they select it. We will also be enhancing app features to support a larger dataset to further facilitate information search for our user. This feature would go hand in hand with stretching A-Cross The Street's reach beyond Oakland, California. Our aim is to facilitate access to care for residents without health insurance throughout California, and even the US.

Built With

• css
• html
• javascript
• react-native